JOHNSTOWN -- The 19-year-old decided to track down sexual predators after watching Dateline on NBC.

The news magazine's latest installment in their series "To Catch A Predator" just aired Wednesday night, but Thursday, a Cambria County man is behind bars.

For months Dateline NBC has been running a series on catching sexual predators online, in which they pose as 13-year-old girls. After seeing the story, 19-year-old Kevin Cope, a student at the University of Alabama- Birmingham, wanted to know if the threat was real. What he found out led to an investigation in the johnstown area.

The story starts at the University of Alabama at Birmingham when student Kevin Cope decided to see just how dangerous the internet really is. Cope was concerned about the young girls in his family, so after seeing the Dateline series "to catch a predator," he posed as a 13-year-old girl online.

Johnstown detective Julie Wagner said, "When an individual started speaking to him who he learned was in johnstown, he decided he would say he was from state college. The chat went on and it became sexual in nature and then when a discussion of a possible meeting took place. He sent it to our tip line."

From there Detective Wagner took over and began using Kevin's screen name. After 7 different online chats, and weeks of investigation, a warrant was issued for 56-year-old Robert Brumbaugh of Jackson Township.

Wagner said, "it was planned. On the way from the Ebensburg police barracks, I was online with the gentleman the entire time and he chatted to me again, sexual in nature, during the trip to his residents."

Wagner says she has told kevin he would make a great detective or reporter for Dateline. She says she plans on calling him later to say nice job on his hard work.

Wagner said, "It shows a huge amount of insight for a young man to think so much of the responsibility to not only for his community but to our community."